Sunday, May 8, 2016

Buhari Orders Military To Crush New Niger Delta Militants

President Muhammadu Buhari has given a fresh order to the military to
crack down on a new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers, which has
been attacking oil installations, causing blackouts in Nigeria.
Mr President gave the directive following the group’s attack on
Chevron’s platform in Warri, Delta State, on Thursday and its blowing up
of pipelines linking Warri and Kaduna refineries on Friday.Following
the attack on the Okan offshore production platform on Wednesday by the
militants, Chevron said it had lost about 105,000 barrels of oil
production in three days.

According to Punch, the oil major said
the incident had affected about 35,000 barrels per day of its own net
crude production, or about 15 per cent of its output in the country.

“Approximately
35,000 bpd of Chevron’s net crude oil production in Nigeria are
impacted,” AFP quoted a Chevron’s spokeswoman, Isabel Ordonez, as saying
in a statement.

The General Manager, Policy, Government and Public Affairs, Chevron Nigeria Limited, Mr. Deji Haastrup, confirmed the figure.

He
said, “This is a very difficult time for the country because it needs
the revenue it can get from oil production. Incidents such as this have
the potential to impact that. We do hope that it does not seriously
affect the country.”

Workers on the pipelines said before the attack, they had pumped 28,000 barrels from Escravos terminal.

“Both
Warri and Kaduna refineries also got a delivery rate of 903,000 barrels
just before the attacks,” the workers who spoke on condition of
anonymity said.

Following the attacks, there were about 10 military air patrols over the pipelines on Saturday.

It
had been difficult for fire fighters to quench the fire from the bombed
pipelines. “The fire is still on and it’s going to be hard to stop it
because it’s huge,” the workers said on Saturday night.

It was
learnt that following the attacks, which has the potential of affect the
revenue of Nigeria, Buhari had instructed the Army, Navy and Air Force
to stop the activities of the militants immediately.

A
presidential aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “The
President gave special instruction to the military, especially to the
Chief of Naval Staff, that this ugly development of vandals in the Niger
Delta should end immediately.

“What they are doing is complete economic sabotage; it is economic terrorism.”